The Colors of Space - Page 35/108

"I never questioned what I was doing until a few years ago. It was your

father who made me wonder if we Mentorians were blind and selfish--this

privilege ought to belong to everyone, not just the Lhari. More and

more, the Lhari monopoly seemed wrong to me. But I was just a medic. And

if I involved myself in any conspiracy against the Lhari, they'd find it

out in the routine psych-checking.

"And then we worked out how it could be done. Before every trip, with

self-hypnosis and self-suggestion, I erase my own memories--a sort of

artificial amnesia--so that the Lhari can't find out any more than I

want them to find out. Of course, it also means that I have no memory,

while I'm on the Lhari ships, of what I've agreed to while I'm--" His

face suddenly worked, and his mouth moved without words, as if he had

run into some powerful barrier against speech.

It was a full minute, while Bart stared in dismay, before he found his

voice again, saying, "So far, it was just a sort of loose network,

trying to put together stray bits of information that the Lhari didn't

think important enough to censor.

"And then came the big breakthrough. There was a young Apprentice

astrogator named David Briscoe. He'd taken some runs in special test

ships, and read some extremely obscure research data from the early days

of the contact between men and Lhari, and he had a wild idea. He did the

bravest thing anyone has ever done. He stripped himself of all

identifying data--so that if he died, no one would be in trouble with

the Lhari--and stowed away on a Lhari ship."

"But--" Bart's lips were dry--"didn't he die in the warp-drive?"

Slowly, Raynor Three shook his head.

"No, he didn't. No drugs, no cold-sleep--but he didn't die. Don't you

see, Bart?" He leaned forward, urgently.

"It's all a fake! The Lhari have just been saying that to justify

their refusal to give us the secret of the catalyst that generates the

warp-drive frequencies! Such a simple lie, and it's worked for all these

years!"

* * * * * "A Mentorian found him and didn't have the heart to turn him over to the

Lhari. So he was smuggled clear again. But when that Mentorian underwent

the routine brain-checks at the end of the voyage, the Lhari found out

what had happened. They didn't know Briscoe's name, but they wrung that

Mentorian out like a wet dishcloth and got a description that was as

good as fingerprints. They tracked down young Briscoe and killed him.

They killed the first man he'd talked to. They killed the second. The

third was your father."